BRAINTREE — The Archdiocese of Boston announced Friday that the Vatican has stripped three former priests of their clerical roles.

Frederick J. Cartier, Louis J. Govoni and Frederick Guthrie are no longer in the clerical state, a release from the archdiocese said. All three men sought, through a voluntary process, to be removed from the clerical state. They may no longer function in any capacity as priests, with the exception of offering absolution to the dying, according to the statement.

Govoni was working as a substitute teacher at Duxbury High School in 2002 when church records were made public that he had been accused of molesting a male student when he was a religion teacher at Archbishop Williams High School in Braintree in the early 1970s.

Govoni, who was then living in Marshfield, was fired from his job in Duxbury. He had been ordained in 1972, but had not been in ministry and had been absent without permission since 1978, the archdiocese said. He was assigned to St. Joseph Church in Quincy until 1974.

Guthrie was ordained in 1962 and took a leave from the archdiocese in July 2001. Later that same year, he was charged in New Hampshire with using a computer to solicit sex from what he thought was a 15-year-old boy. He pleaded guilty to the charges and was sentenced in 2004 to serve three months in jail.

Guthrie served in Weymouth's Immaculate Conception parish during the early 1970s.

Cartier was ordained in 1963 and was first accused in 2002 of sexually abusing a minor in the early 1970s. By the time this allegation was received, Cartier had been out of ministry for more than 20 years having been granted a leave of absence in 1979 and then leaving the Archdiocese of Boston without permission in 1980, the statement said.